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It was the crest of this ruin that Thenardier had succeed-
ed in reaching, a little after one o’clock in the morning.
How had he got there? That is what no one has ever been
able to explain or understand. The lightning must, at the
same time, have hindered and helped him. Had he made use
of the ladders and scaffoldings of the slaters to get from roof
to roof, from enclosure to enclosure, from compartment to
compartment, to the buildings of the Charlemagne court,
then to the buildings of the Saint-Louis court, to the outer
wall, and thence to the hut on the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile? But
in that itinerary there existed breaks which seemed to ren-
der it an impossibility. Had he placed the plank from his bed
like a bridge from the roof of the Fine-Air to the outer wall,
and crawled flat, on his belly on the coping of the outer wall
the whole distance round the prison as far as the hut? But
the outer wall of La Force formed a crenellated and unequal
line; it mounted and descended, it dropped at the firemen’s
barracks, it rose towards the bath-house, it was cut in twain
by buildings, it was not even of the same height on the Ho-
tel Lamoignon as on the Rue Pavee; everywhere occurred
falls and right angles; and then, the sentinels must have es-
pied the dark form of the fugitive; hence, the route taken by
Thenardier still remains rather inexplicable. In two man-
ners, flight was impossible. Had Thenardier, spurred on by
that thirst for liberty which changes precipices into ditches,
iron bars into wattles of osier, a legless man into an athlete,
a gouty man into a bird, stupidity into instinct, instinct into
intelligence, and intelligence into genius, had Thenardier
invented a third mode? No one has ever found out.